The 0.05% 7-HMG scheduling threshold for leaf: Analysis
Because some folks have expressed concern:
Last night I pulled 80 lab reports from a handful of vendors from very large ones to small batch "cottage" operations across all color types. They were picked based on the accessibility of lab reports. Two vendors were not considered because they did not have lab reports accessible on their website.
No 7-HMG levels in the botanical product samples exceeded 0.0184%, by dry weight basis. The average was 0.00566% (almost 10 times below the limit) with a standard deviation of 0.00368%. This does not prove that they cannot exist, though I'm increasingly doubtful, just that I could not find one.
11 of 80 samples were below the limit of quantification (most common for "reds"), which varied by lab, but was never higher than 0.010%, and in many cases below 0.001%.
This was below the pending scheduling action that sets a threshold at 0.05%.
There was no significant correlation between shelf 7-HMG levels and mitragynine levels (r=-0.007, n=80).
I am not writing this to advocate for or against the scheduling action (in this post) and my only intention is to report my findings to the community.
Other information collected:
Average mitragynine: 1.31% (range: 0.62% to 1.73%).
Notes:
A larger sample is always better. I stopped at 80 because I had not seen any samples exceeding the threshold, and only 7 (of 80) were 0.010% or higher and time constraints.